The present invention relates to a device for monitoring usage of audiovisual equipment. In particular, the present invention relates to a device for interfacing with set-top converter boxes to determine a channel being watched by a television viewer.
Determining a number of viewers watching a particular television program is of great importance to television networks, stations, programmers and advertisers. Information regarding the number of viewers is used to determine market share and the ratings of particular programs. This information is additionally used to determine advertising rates, which in turn affects the revenue generated by the television networks and stations.
There are numerous systems known in the art that attempt to monitor the viewing habit of television watchers. Early attempts at monitoring were fairly simple and unsophisticated, and generally required viewers to maintain a diary of programs watched. As the viewers began and finished watching a particular channel or program, they entered a start and end time in to the diary. The viewers periodically mailed the diaries to a central collection location, which then processed the diaries. The disadvantages of such a system are many, including: failure to enter information into the diaries, inaccurate entries into the diaries, and delays in processing. Further, as the number of channels provided to households has increased dramatically, it has become increasingly difficult for viewers to accurately track their viewing habits.
Later attempts have become more sophisticated and efficient by automating portions of the data collection process and the determination of the channel currently being viewed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,642,685, to Roberts et al., discloses a television monitoring system having a channel detection unit, a people monitoring unit, a transmission unit, and a receiving unit. The channel detection unit detects ultra or very high frequency radiation emitted from a television tuner to determine if the channel being tuned is one of the channels which have been preset into the detection unit. The detection is performed by a pickup probe that inductively couples the signal emitted from the local oscillator of the television receiver. The people monitor unit is a powered handset that includes buttons assigned to each of the individuals who will be viewing the television set. The viewer depresses his or her assigned button to indicate he or she has started to watch the television. The viewing data is stored and transmitted by the transmission unit over household wiring to the receiving unit. The receiving unit sends the collected information to a central computer via a telephone connection. While this system speeds the data transmission process to the central computer as compared to mailing diaries to a processing center, there are several disadvantages in this system. For example, those of skill in the art will recognize that the location of the pick-up probe will greatly affect the sensitivity and accuracy of the channel detection unit. Further, as each viewer must manually depress a button on the people monitor, it is subject to the same inaccuracies of the diary method noted above, i.e., the failure of viewers to record the television channels actually watched.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,907,079, to Tuner et al., describes networked conventional audio and visual equipment that communicate via telephone lines with a remote central computer. The viewer provides channel selection commands or other programming commands to a microprocessor through an infrared remote control. A VCR tuner and TV tuner within the system provide audio and video signals for the conventional television monitor or television receiver. An AM and FM radio tuner may also be included, tunable by the microprocessor. In the Tuner et al. system, the video and/or audio signals from each tuner, video tape player, and disc players are coupled to the input side of an audio switch and a video switch. The switches are microprocessor controlled so that the audio and video program from any source may be coupled to any output or display device at the viewing location. The system includes a motion detector to determine the presence of viewers and provides for communication with a remote computer to monitor use of each networked audiovisual unit. While this system provides for monitoring and logging of each networked audiovisual unit, the Tuner et al. system is designed to control a large home-entertainment system, rather than a small-scale solution to monitoring viewers"" habits. In particular, the Turner et al. system is indicated to cost a few hundred dollars, and would fail to provide a solution to television networks and advertisers who are interested in obtaining accurate viewing statistics by deploying systems to a relatively large number of viewers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,912,552, to Allison, III, et al., describes a system that collects television channel tuning data that transmits the data to a central site in a transparent manner to the occupants of the household. The system is designed having a hub and spoke architecture, where the hub unit communicates with metering devices attached to television receivers and/or cable television converters. The meters are periodically polled by the hub, which then collects the data acquired by each meter. The hub communicates with a host computer via standard telephone lines. The Allison, III, et al. system particularly describes the central hub device and gathering data before transmitting it to the central site. However, the Allison, III et al. system fails to provide an improved metering unit by contemplating the use of known channel meters.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,374,951, to Welsh, discloses a system for monitoring and recording data related to television program viewing habits that includes a plurality of remote program monitor units that automatically report such data to a central computer via a conventional telephone network. The monitor unit reads a character string that is decoded from the demodulated television signal received by the unit. The character string is compared to a string table stored within the unit to determine the content being viewed by the television watcher. If there is a match, an event code and a time are stored in the unit for reporting to the central computer. However, for the system to operate, the character string must be encoded into the received television signal, otherwise there will be no match with the string table stored in memory. Further, the string table must be kept current for the system to provide accurate results.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,970, to Kiefl, describes a system for monitoring and collecting data on the viewing habits of television viewers that includes a portable personal data collection device that is separate from the television or set-top converter. The personal data collection devices includes a detector for providing a station identifier identifying the particular broadcast signal being received by the receiver, a clock for providing a signal representing time, a memory for storing data, and a cellular telephone module for communicating with a central location. The cellular telephone module periodically transmits stored data within the device to the central location. The viewer may enter channel information directly into the device, or the device may include a detector for detecting a channel selection signal from a television remote control to change the station identifier stored in memory. While this is an improvement over diaries, this system requires a personal data collection device for each individual watching a particular television set. Further, because the device is physically separate from the television set, the data collected may not be accurate as viewers may either fail to enter channel information or the device may not detect an infrared transmission from the television remote control.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,282, to Mostafa, et al., discloses a tuning/monitoring module for monitoring use of a video equipment without the use of probes by injecting RF signals into a cable converter and a VCR in order to detect channels selected by the cable converter and the VCR. In accordance with signals received from the cable converter and the VCR, the tuning/monitoring module can determine a selected channel being viewed by the viewers. Channel identification signals are also injected into the VCR and cable converter for recording by the VCR on videotape. The state of the xe2x80x9cTV/VCRxe2x80x9d switch of the VCR is determined by injecting a code signal into the VCR and determining whether that signal is present in an RF video signal output by the VCR. The receiver also receives data contained in channel identification signals. The receiver is selectively connectable to the VCR and the cable converter. However, this system requires the use of the special tuning/monitoring module in place of a tuner provided with a television or VCR in order to provided the injected signal to determine the viewed channel. Such a special tuning/monitoring module increases the expense associated with tracking viewers"" habits.
In view of the above, there is a need for an integrated solution to detect the channels being watched by viewers. There is also a need for a system that does not interfere with any of the consumer""s electronics, equipment or features. In particular, there is a need for a system that provides channel information without requiring addition steps to be taken by viewers, and that functions such that the consumer""s VCR, TV, remote controls are not tampered with or opened and continue to operate normally.
In view of the above, the present invention, through one or more of its various aspects and/or embodiments is thus presented to accomplish one or more objects and advantages, such as those noted below.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a display interface device for use in determining a currently tuned-to channel of a set-top converter box having an electronic display, where the electronic display indicates the currently tuned-to channel in response to drive signals provided thereto by the set-top converter device. The display interface device comprises an electrical connection to the electronic display and a controller that is connected to the electronic display by the electrical connection. The controller receives the drive signals transmitted to the electronic display by the set-top converter device and interprets the drive signals to generate information representative of the currently tuned-to tuned channel.
According to a feature of the present invention, the electronic display comprises at least one seven-segment display element, and the seven-segment display element is adapted to display an alphanumeric character representation of the currently tuned-to channel of the set-top converter box. The drive signals are provided to plural seven-segment display elements in the electronic display using a multiplexing scheme in order to display each alphanumeric character of the currently tuned-to channel. Further, the drive signals may comprise scan signals provided over scan lines that selectively enable one seven-segment display element in the electronic display and segment signals provided over segment lines that drive each segment of the seven-segment display element. The scan lines and the segments lines are input to predetermined pins of an input/output port of the controller in order to determine the currently tuned-to channel.
According to another feature, the information representative of the tuned channel may be output to a second device connected to the display interface via a second electrical connection. The second device may stores receive and further process the information representative of the currently tuned-to channel. In addition, the display interface board may be adapted to receive power and additional data via the second electrical connection.
According to yet another feature, the second device may comprise a viewership collection meter and the information representative of the tuned channel may be coded as an ASCII value representative of the currently tuned-to channel and output to a viewership meter connected to the display interface via a second electrical connection. The viewership meter may also include an audio matching circuit that compares a first audio signal of a predetermined channel tuned by the viewership collection meter with a second audio signal output by a television to which the set-top converter is connected, wherein if the first audio signal and the second audio signal match, the viewership collection meter determines that the channel to which the set-top converter box is tuned is the predetermined channel.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for determining viewership of channels tunable by a set-top converter box having an electronic display. The system comprises a display interface device connected to the electronic display, and a viewership collection meter connected to the display interface that periodically stores a channel to which the set-top converter is tuned. The channel to which the set-top converter is tuned is determined by the display interface and communicated to the viewership collection meter, and the viewership collection meter stores the channel and forwards it to a predetermined location at selected times.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of determining a channel to which a set-top converter box is tuned using a display interface where the set-top converter comprises an electronic display that is driven by drive signals. The method comprises receiving drive signals at the display interface; determining a channel to which the set-top converter box is tuned by sampling the drive signals; generating a coded representation of the determined channel; and outputting the coded representation.
According to a feature of the method, the electronic display comprises at least one seven-segment display element, and the drive signals comprise scan signals provided over scan lines that enable each seven-segment display element and segment signals provided over segment lines that drive each segment of the seven-segment display element. The step of determining a channel to which the set-top converter box is tuned further comprises (a) determining if a scan line for the seven-segment display element is active; (b) if the scan line is active at step (a), then determining which of the segment lines are active to determine character being displayed by the seven-segment display element; and (c) repeating steps (a) and (b) for each seven-segment display element in the electronic display.
According to another feature of the method the step of generating a coded representation of the determined channel comprises generating an ASCII value of the channel to which the set-top converter box is tuned. Outputting the coded representation may comprise serially transmitting the ASCII value to a viewership meter. The ASCII value may be stored at the viewership meter and forwarded at predetermined times to a central collection site.
Other features of the invention are described below.